Television Crossover Universe

 In the past, I have covered some fictional companies within series posts, such as Hudson University in the Law & Order post or Oceanic Airlines in the Lost post.   I've discovered a new one, Enzo's.   It's an upscale Italian restaurant franchise dating back to the 1930s.  Now I should say, in my research I have found there to be many real Enzo's restaurants, so it could be that all these Enzo's that appear in fiction are unrelated, as are the ones in real life, but where's the fun in that?  That fact is that they are connected because it's a go-to for fiction writers. I came across this a few weeks ago, when Enzo's was mentioned in both Stranger Things and St. Dennis Medical Center , both as an upscale Italian restaurant, but it must be a franchise since both shows have different settings.   So I did a little research and found this google AI information: "Enzo's" is a common name for fictional Italian restaurants, appearing in va...

 So the X-Men are coming to the MCU.  Yay, I'm very excited!  But which X-Men?  We know they are coming from an alternate universe, and we have the original actors coming back, but still, which timeline? I hope they aren't saying it's the Deadpool timeline.   Here's the problem with Deadpool being in the MCU multiverse.  Deadpool and Wolverine was a fun movie.  But first off, Deadpool shouldn't have been in the same universe as Logan.  First, Logan is still alive in the present of Deadpool.  He hasn't died yet.  So it made no sense to go looking for a new Wolverine to replace him.  Second, the X-Men still exist in the present of Deadpool.  Prof. X is said to still lead the X-Men.  But according to the Logan timeline, the X-Men died shortly after the first film, and Prof. X is living with Logan in hiding.   I know, it's a spoof movie.  And I'm fine with that.  Only, they made it part of MCU canon....

  Rutland Vermont has an annual Halloween Parade , the longest running annual Halloween Parade in America .  It started in 1960.  It was founded by Tom Fagen .  While in the past it had a very strong superhero theme , this year's parade seemed to focus more on Ghostbusters and The Nightmare Before Christmas .   The parade was very well known and popular among comic creators in the 1970s and 1980s who would travel from New York City to attend the parade.  They would feature the parade in their stories, for both Marvel and DC, and usually show people in costumes from their competitors in those stories, as well as putting themselves and their friends in the stories.  Tom Fagen would often appear in the stories as well.  Tom usually dressed as Batman in the parades, but in Marvel Comics he would be drawn dressed at Nighthawk .   The first appearance of the parade was in Avengers # 83 , December 1970. In 1972, it appeared in a three p...

 I've taken another hiatus on the Sci-Fi Multiverse book.  There's a lot of redundencies with the Horror Crossover Encyclopedia, more than I anticipated.  There's a lot of sci-fi/horror crossovers.  I don't want to repeat myself but I also want to be all-inclusive.  This has left me frustrated and ready to abandon the project altogether.  My previous venture, Cartoon Multiverse, was abandoned because of my quest to be all-inclusive faced me against Family Guy, where the crossovers never end and I was really sick of watching every Family Guy episode in such minute detail.   So...  I figured I can spend more time on the TVCU blog.  I love the TVCU blog.  Except, I'm running out of ideas.  I think I've covered mostly everything, except for maybe some topics I don't have enough familiarity with to cover.  I know there's a lot of anime crossovers, which I would have gotten to in Cartoon Multiverse, but I'm really not that famil...

 Every weekend I block out two hours for writing, and I should be using that time editing my book today, but I'm really not enjoying writing that book, and thinking of abandoning it altogether, so instead I'm doing another blog post to procrastinate from that other project. Some say we have super hero fatigue.  Less super hero movies are being made, after years of flooding the market.  James Gunn says that it's not fatigue for super-hero movies.  We just need good stories.   Super hero movies have been with us since the days of the serials in the 1940s.  Superman, Batman, Captain Marvel and Captain America all got serials, along with non-super comic book characters like Blackhawk, Hop Harrigan, and Dick Tracy.   For decades, it seemed as though the super-hero movies were focused on Superman and Batman.   That changed in 2000 with the release of X-Men.  Many will say that Blade in 1998 was the start, and that may be true, but I ...

 The Naked Gun just came out.  And it was hilarious.  It captured the essence of the original trilogy while having fresh, original jokes. There is one Naked Gun trailer where Liam Neeson talks about how every day a comedy script is getting rejected.   It's true.  The comedy drama, which has evolved but gone strong since the days of silent films, is dying.   In the 1941 film Sullivan's Travels, a famous director, best known for comedy, decides he wants to make a serious film about the plight of the homeless.  In a series of circumstances, he finds himself in jail, with nobody believing his true identity.  He attends a movie while in jail, a comedy, and sees how the poor suffering souls in prison all find joy in comedy.  And thus he decides he must keep making comedies. We are gong through hard times.  We need comedy more than ever.  But unfortunately, I think the sensitivity of younger generations (the target audience for f...